Our Lord of the Miracles of Buga

Our Lord of Miracles of Guadalajara de Buga Nuestro Señor de Los Milagros de Buga
Lord of Miracles
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Major shrine	Basilica of Our Lord of Miracles, Buga City, Colombia
Attributes	Crucified Christ in agony, gilded crown of thorns, silver and platinum cross, embroidered clothes
Patronage	Miracles, Colombian Armed Forces, desperate situations, impossible causes

Our Lord of the Miracles of Guadalajara of Buga (Template:Lang-es), also known as the Lord of the Miracles (Template:Lang-es), is a title associated with a celebrated appeared tridimensional figure of Crucified Jesus Christ, believed that is not made by human hands but of divine origin, and that is housed since the XVI century in a sanctuary Basilica of Our Lord of the Miracles in Guadalajara de Buga City.

In this sense the image of the Lord of Miracles of Buga, In the west most interAndean Columbian Valley, is one of the two great Acheiropoietas of the new world, the other one is our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, and that refers exclusively to Jesus Christ.

The Basilica of Our Lord of the miracles with around a million visitors per year is by far the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in Columbia (Colombia in Spanish) and certainly among the south American Andes's most-visited sacred sites attracting every year thousands of devotes from many countries.

This minor Basilica is the most famous Catholic non Marian sanctuary in the Americas, although the redemptorist monastic community that administrates it has promoted in the same temple along years the veneration a reproduction of the Cretan icon of our Lady of the Perpetual help, another so famous image that it is believed to be possibly painted when the Holy Virgin St Mary was still alive in Turkey. This painting therefore is one of the strongest candidates to be the lost byzantine Hodegetria. The redemptorist order has the custody of the original icon in the church of Saint Alphonsus di Liguouri, Esquiline Hill, Rome, Italy.

The original Hodetria was displayed in the Monastery of the Panaghia Hodegetria in Constantinople, which was built specially to contain it. It was said to have been brought back from the Holy Land by Eudocia, the Empress of Theodosius II (408–450), and to have been painted by Saint Luke.

Possibly the possession of such a relic by the redentorist order in Europe was what motivated their interest into accept the invitation of the bishop of Popayan to take care the image of Our Lord of Miracles of the Columbian Andes in Buga. This dark skined Christ is also one of the two most famous Acheiropoitas in the world, aside of Our Lady of the Pillar that also appeared miracolously in Zagoza Spain by October of the 40 A.D., that is not a flat image but a tridimensional figure.

Preliminary Marian apparition in the Pacific Andes (Our lady of the Mountain)

Colombia in general, and the region of the Cauca's Valley in particular, where the city of Guadalajara de Buga is located, has another well known Acheiropoita that is a figure, officially recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, it is linked to the advocation of Our Lady of the Remedies ( Nuestra Senora de los Remedios in Spanish).

This natural statue of St. Mary that was venerated by the aborigines before to be discovered by the Spaniards, who called her simply as The Queen of the Mountain or Our Lady of Queremal, appeared miraculously next to a water fall, today called the mantle of the Virgin, in the middle of the peaks of the western Andes, surrounded by dense tropical vegetation, in the traditional way from the harbor of Buenaventura in the Pacific ocean and the city of Santiago de Cali in the Inter Andean valley of the Cauca's river.

Miraculous Apparition of the Lord of the Waters

In the same decade to the apparition of the Queen of the Mountain, by 1573 official Catholic accounts state that on September it decided the construction of a Hermitage next to the place of Buga, where it was celebrated by the people a cult to the Lord of Waters, a crucified Christ that supposedly was miraculously appeared on the shores of the Guadalajara, also called Piedras, River.

The apparition then took place apparently in the 1550's, therefore in the very foundation years of the Spanish settlement, to an old native Andean woman, possibly a survival Buga aborigine, in the western Colombian Cauca's valley, whose job was to wash laundry of different families in that stream. It is said that the old lady dreamed to be able to save money good enough to buy a fine colonial crucifix imported from Quito to use to praise God in her simple wooden hut.

The woman, whose actual identity is still unknown, was one of the aborigines that received Christian religious instruction by members of the FuenMayor family, that acted as their encomenders, and who are credited to be the actual founders of the definitive Spanish settlement of Guadalajara de Buga.

Image of the Christ of Miracles at the Main altar at the Basilica

She actually traveled by walking, crossing the river, to the center city of Guadalajara de Buga, a city located at that time in the other shore, to visit some shop and asked there for an image of the quality she was looking for. Its cost was around 70 reales ( the Spanish currency of the epoch) and needed to be imported as far as from Equator or Peru, if not from Spain, since it was not manufactured in Colombia.

From her savings of many months of hard work this lady was able to complete the price of the crucifix. However, when she was ready to go back to the shop to order her Christ, suddenly in her way to the city she found guards escorting a neighbor that she seldom met who was going to be jailed for cumulated debt of exactly 70 reales owned to a well known loan shark of the region.

The good woman decided to get rid all the money she had saved for her crucifix to keep the man, another Buga aborigine, out of jail and then she returned to her humble work in the river after perform such a noble act of charity.

Some days after, while she was washing laundry, she saw a brilliant small object that was being carried by the stream of water in the middle of the river. She catched it to discovered that it was tiny crucifix. She was so happy with her finding that as soon as she arrived to home she made an altar using a common wooden box for the small Christ.

One Night she heard some strange noises coming from the altar box of the Christ. The crackling of the wood was obvious and she became astonished to confirm that the box was broken by the crucifix that was growing up inside.

The news of the miracle that was happening in the Andean Indian hut were spread along all the Cauca's river valley and many people started to gather at the place, where a hermitage was built, turning the humble house into a sanctuary.

A rich family in the region decided to donate lands to build a great church, the first Hermitage, in the place of its finding to venerate the holy crucifix that was grown from a pocket size to human body proportions and that was already called the lord of Miracles.

A great obstacle to facilitate the peregrination to the sanctuary was the fact that there was no bridge to cross this relatively big stream, but accounts of the epoch said that after some collective acts of prayer during the raining season a natural phenomenon took place to fix such issue.

During strong rains the River suddenly changed its original path and moved in a way that its new bed became many meters distant from the old one, leaving the Hermitage located in the same side of the city.

History

Guadalajara de Buga, which is the city´s formal name, is one of the oldest cities in Columbia; founded in 1555 under the order of the Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar and known as Buga la Real ("the Royal Buga" ) or La Ciudad Señora (“the Lady City”). It was the home of many wealthy families coming from Spain and settling in the New World.

King Philip II of Spain gave Guadalajara de Buga its city status officially at the end of the 16th century and also granted its coat of arms for the many services rendered to the crown.

For the first fifty years of the veneration of the Lord of Miracles sanctuary, the image was kept in a small hermitage aside the river in the place it was originally found by the wagtail. It suffered a gradual darkening that was attributed to the smog of candles used to enlighten the place. Also the cross was deteriorated since people started to take out pieces of it to carry as relics.

By 1605 a special inspector of the Roman Catholic church sent by the Bishop of Popayan, who was worried of the legends of the miraculously appeared Christ , fearing an accusation of schism to the Holy inquisition and using the excuse that he found the quality of the image so degraded by the touching of the devotes decided to burn it. The image was put outside the hermitage inside strong fire specially prepared to destroy it, but the Christ didn't burn. Instead it started to transpire a lot of oily sweat that the devotes wept with small pieces of cotton.

The pieces of cotton touched to the image while it was in the fire reportedly produced a lot of miraculous cures when were used to touch ill people of the region giving even more fame to the sanctuary. As a consequence of the attempt of burn the image, the skin Christ turned from light olive color to a darker one that is the current it has.

In September and October of 1757 the Bishop of Popayán, Diego del Corro, visited Guadalajara de Buga, to witness personally the existence of the image and decides to collect all documents about it to prepare a case to be sent to Lima Peru, the official site of the Inquisition tribunal.

From the 1700s thru the 1900s, three different hermitages were built at the site. Since this is the most seismicly active region of western Colombia, they became damaged by earthquakes.

By 1875 sinde the temple was so much damaged the Bishop of Popayan brought the redemptorist friars to inhabit and take care of it. Few time after that a lot donations from the devotes were collected to start the construction of the Basilica. Four million brickets were manufactured in the city and twelve thousand arrobas of calcium used to paste them to build the walls. The work was carried out by volunteers of all the region under the supervision of the priests.

The formal inauguration of the temple was on August 2, 1907 (In the Holiday of San Alfonso , the founder of the Redemptorist order), with a solemn blessing ceremony in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio, representing the Holy see, Monseñor Ragonesi and the new ArchBishop of Popayán, Monseñor Antonio Arboleda, among thouss of devotes from all over the country.

By April 29 of 1937 a mad man tried to destroy the image with strong strokes of a machete against the material of which the Christ was made. The image was not destroyed but the attack opened a gap in the right side of the torso, showing that it was not carved in wood as many believed but in some kind of mud.

In March 4, 1956 on Sunday the Priest that was celebrating mass suffered an assassination attempt, but the dagger used by the attacker became fractured in the air in three pieces in presence of many witnesses, a fact that received a lot of coverage of the press. The three pieces of the arm are still permanently exhibited in the museum of the Basilica.

On February 3 of 1969 another person attacked the image causing some damage to it, so an artisan was called to repair it and it was he who confirmed that the Christ is not carved but made of mud and grass like the one on the shores of the Guadalajara river.

At present the Christ, which is an extremely famous relic not only in the region or in Colombia but in all the Andes producing dozens of miracles every year, is well protected behind bulletproof glass.

Unknown identity of the finder and First printed accounts

A witness mentioned in ecclesiastic documents of that time of the miracle of the fire in 1605, when the Bishop of Popayan ordered the destruction of the image, was a lady called Luisa Sanchez, who could be the same washing woman that originally found it or also probably her survival relative.

Other Historians said that this testimony given to one Inquisition Visitador ( inspector), in 1665, corresponds to Doña Luisa de la Espada, who was instead a daughter of one of the Buga Patriarchs that gave money to build the first Hermitage. Her words in written document in the archives say that she swore to have seen the image in the fire not burning but transpiring oily liquid.

During the XVI and XVII the image was known among the common people of the Cauca's Valley as The Lord of the waters, but the increasing fame of the miracles obtained from its devotion changed to Lord of Miracles.

Basilica del Senor de los Milagros de Guadalajara de Buga

Among the first printed official accounts is the full story of the Miracle of the Guadalajara river written by Franciscan order Friar Francisco G. Rodríguez in 1819, the same year Columbia became independent of Spain. There are records showing that General Simon Bolivar visited Buga among the places he traveled across in his independence campaign for the south west of the country after the battle of Boyacá in his route to Equator.

This unique Christ modeled on materials of the western Colombian Andes receives its name after the region of Buga, that was in colonial times populated by the aborigines called Bugas, possibly belonged to the native Caribbean ethnic, and that were violently conquered by the Spaniards that arrived to region in the early 16th century.

In 1783 the rector of the Popayan seminar, that was also the director of the sanctuary of Buga, sent to Rome a report with the approval of the Bishop, already containing an extense list of miracles of healing of devotes. H.H. Pope Píus VI responded this communication with 22 “breves perpetuos”, special instructions in which he granted generous indulgencies to all the pilgrims that attend the sanctuary. The copy of this Pontific document is filed in the Archives of the Basilica.

The image as artifact

Iconographic description

The image is a full-length representation of a olive skinned Christ , a long haired young man with high cheek-bones and cleft chin covered by curled beard. His features are visible altered by the torture suffered on the agony of the passion, and straight reddish brown waved hair simply parted in the middle framing his face. He is falling, hanged from the cross, with the hands and feet pierced by strong nails. His head is slightly inclined. He has a suffering but at the same time very serene expression in his eyes.

As a curious detail this Christ image didn't have really a crown of thorns already modeled on it, so the devotes have added to the head a diadem made of plants of the Andes, but without thorns, and fixing on it rays of Gold with precious gems.

Apparently the figure is naked, but it has been dressed along the centuries with fine embroidered cloths that are periodically changed and cover the upper legs and belly. His head has been partially covered by a diadem of plants used to make baskets or hampers in the Andean artcraft and decorated with fine rays in Gold and with precious stones that were donated by devotes in gratitude for the miracles attributed to Christ in its advocation of Our lord of Miracles.

Its entire cross is framed by waiving flames made of silver and platinum possibly added in between the XVII or XVIII centuries that may represent at the same time its divine nature or remember the miracle of the fire, when the image was tested by putting them in a bonfire by orders of the inquisition inspector.

The base of the cross has a garden of tropical flowers made in platinum, silver and gold, showing the image also as hanging from a tree of life. This duality of the cross acting as symbol of sacrificial death but also of life generation is typical of the mesoamerican mythologies in the area that runs from Columbia to Mexico.

All these additions in noble metals follow a millenial custom to offer votive elements in thanksgiving to the divinity for the miracles received. This tradition can be traced back from the small gold figures called Tunjos that were thrown by the aborigines in Andean Lakes during rituals to the popular way among the present people of the Andes to bring ex-votos to ornate saints in the churches after a miracle is granted.

Physical description

Although it has all the aspect of a wooden Colonial Christ, the figure has been discovered recently to be made actually as modeled like a very fine ceramic, with porcelain quality, from a mixture of very fine highly plastic mud and grass that correspond to the plants found in the shores of the Guadalajara river until present.

There are no precedents of this same quality of porcelain work in all the art craft of the Americas. It represents a singularity never repeated again either in the Pre-hispanic or the Colonial religious art of not only Columbia but any other place in the entire Andean region of south America.

The original color of the figure is of mysterious origin, since resemble human skin, and it was possible protected subsequently with layers of varnish for religious figures used in colonial times by artisans hired to either repair or protect the figure , although there are no records of such repairs in the church archives.

The Lord of Miracles of Guadalajara of Buga has at present the size of a short adult man ( 1.30mts, about 4.5 ft). It has a distinctive look that is not really European, due to the relative dark color of his skin, but definitively of a man of middle east, resembling a lot the depictions of Christ from the Holy Mandylion and Keramion, or the mount Sinai monastery:

With brown reddish long curled hair, and beard, and olive color skin, stained in many areas with the red of blood, it has a tender expression of compassion in his face that contrast with the painful appearance of all the injuries and scares of the passion in his body that correspond perfectly with a roman execution of crucifixion as it is fully described in the four canonical gospels.

Is this contrast in between the expression of peace and serenity in the eyes and deep compassion for who is looking at it from below what makes the figure unique in all the religious imagery of Columbia. Other depictions of Christ in the thousands of crucifixes of the Andean art are definitively more focused in the pain and show Jesus with his eyes seeing to the heaven instead to the people as it is the case of this one.

Technical analyses

On October 5 of 2006 a team of specialists, apparently scientists of Del Valle University and the National Learning and Professional competences certification System (SENA), two HIgher education institutes that have campuses in Guadealajara de Buga, used four different complementary technologies to analyze the artifact: X rays, ultraviolet rays, pigment and stratigraphic analysis. The analysis of the image certified its incredible well preserved condition after several centuries.

One of the most strange phenomena that has occurred with the Christ of Buga is that occasionally it is referred in Historic Chronics that it is able to continue growing even beyond its current size. This dilation of the materials have happened in specially difficult years for the country, like in the middle of the One thousand days civil war (1900-1903, with more than 100000 fatal victims) or by 1953 when the Violence civil war ( 1950–53, with more than 300000 fatal victims) reached its peak in destruction of Human lives.

The popular culture attributes this event to the will of God to don't allow the image to go in procession outdoors of its temple in rejection for the sinful situation of the moment among the people. The fact is that when the image grows beyond certain point it becomes heavier and it is extremely difficult to make it go through the main door of the Basilica.

The last times this has occurred were during the armed conflict launched by polarized political groups produced by the last years of the cold war ( Colombian and Costarican democracies were the only Latin American ones never interrupted in the 1960s to 1990s, while their neighbors were under military dictatorships, either of totalitarian fascist or Bolivarian socialist afiliations, and there were Marxist Communist revolutions in Cuba and Central America) and by the arrival of international maffias of Narco traffic to the country after the breakdown of their operations elsewhere due to the fall of China (1948), Burma (1962), Laos (1975), South Vietnam (1975), Iran (1979) and Afghanistan (1979) as the principal providers of illicit drugs to the Narcotics market in American metropolises as a consequence of their political changes toward totalitarian regimes.

This triggered a conflict never seen before in Columbian History in between the government against Drug cartiers and among different kind of militias of extreme right and left, including fascist and Marxist groups, causing an internal exodus of three million of civilian population and the exile of almost 5 million abroad, and fatalities in between 380000 to 570000. (This happened from 1984 Assassination of the Justice Ministry Rodrigo Lara to 1993 hunting and death of the Drugs trafficant Pablo Escobar and the surrender of the Cali Cartier leaders in 1995, the Rodriguez Brothers to the Columbian Justice).

There is no scientific explanation concerning the change of size or weight of the image, since the material is neither metal to suffer expansion caused by heat nor wood to absorb atmospheric humidity.

Religious significance

The Lord of Miracles of Buga is an image several times used in religious processions and public acts of prayer for the Peace of Colombia as well as when there are natural disasters like when earthquakes occur in the Andes or during strong floods produced by tropical storms every year.

In particular during the grave narco-terrorist wave of violence that shacked Colombia during the second half of the 1980s and first of the 1990s, the Lord of the Miracles of Buga was sent in 1993 tour around the principal cities of the country, including his arrival to the Capital Sta Fe de Bogota, as a special act of special consecration of the nation by the Roman Catholic Church that included several collective acts in which hundreds of thousands of devotes were gathered to pray for the ending of the internal conflict.

Our lord of Miracles had been used in its sanctuary by the Catholic Church as a powerful national icon invoking the Peace and reconciliation in multiple occasions in Columbian History to call for end of internal conflicts, as it happened with intense prayer acts during the One thousand days war (1902), the Violencia civil war (1951).

There is an interesting parallelism also in between the natural predisposition of the Christ of Buga to hang out in public procession, due to its change of size and weight, and the climate of religiosity in the country. By the end of June 1902 Columbia was consacreted first time to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a nation by Monsenor Bernardo Herrera-Restrepo in a church specially created for such act, El Voto Nacional, with the presence of President Jose Maria Sanclemente, few months before the ending of the one thousand years civil war.

In 1903, once the war was ended the Lord of Miracles of Buga went first time in years outdoors of the basilica. The solemn act of consecration remained unaltered and being continuosly practiced every year , with the presence of every single President to the country until 1994, when it was derogated by an administration (Ernesto Samper-Pizano) accused to have financed their political campaign with money from the lords of drugs. In the years after this decision was taken the processions outdoors in Buga were interrupted.

It has just until 2004 when again the Cardinals of the Roman Apostolic Catholic church have restored the solemn act of consacretion of Columbia to the Holy Heart of Jesus. Our Lord of the Miracles of Buga was successfully exposed in solemn procession outdoors of the Basilica in the following 2007, as well as 2014.

Cultural significance

Symbol of Colombia

The angular stone for the construction of the sanctuary was blessed by Ortiz, the archbishop of Popayán. Also attending the religious ceremony was the President of the United States of Colombia, Rafael Nunez in 1886.

The building of the church took more than 15 years, and was interrupted by the war of the thousand days in between 1900 and 1903, the worst civil war that ever occurred in Colombia.

The inauguration was on August 2, 1907 dedicated by the authorities of the Department regional government and representatives of the national government as well as ecclesiastic authorities. The Solemn Benediction of the Basilica was carried out by then-Archbishop of Popayán, Msgr. Antonio Arboleda, on the Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorist Order.

The minor Basilica is 33 meters in height, 80 meter long, and it had a French Clock installed in March 18, 1909. In between its two beautiful towers there is a statue of Christ Redemtor of 2 ½ mts of height, in melted iron. The Bells are five imported from France. These are biggest church's bells of Colombia. The bell called of the Miracles maker ( el Milagroso) sounds in Mi, with a weight of 1.111 Kgms, the bell called of the Perpetual help (Perpetuo Socorro) emits a note of Fa bemol, weighting 778 Kgms, the bell that is called of St Therese of the Jesus Child sounds with a note of Sol, and weights 548 Kgms. The smallest bell of the set weights 289 Kgms, y the biggest one, called the monumental, was built in 1955, weighting 3 tons.

The total area of the Basilica is about 2.088 square meters. The cost of the construction was valued in about ten millions of Colombian Pesos of the time, that were at least equivalent to the same amount in dollars of the epoch.

The image of Our lord of Miracles contain inspirational elements that challenge the imagination of Colombian writers of the Latin American boom of magical realism to create fascinating stories like: The image of El Ecce-homo of El Divino of Gustavo Alvarez-Gardeazabal, The principal role of the divine being that fell of heaven in a Macondian town in Un senor muy viejo con unas alas enormes, or the unexpected handsome drowned man found by the fishers in El ahogado mas hermoso del mundo both tales of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.

The Columbian film industry also has found inspiration in both apparitions of Our lady of Remedies and Our Lord of Miracles to create interesting productions, like the Strategy of the Snail, a film 1993 by Jorge Cabrera, when Misia Triana (played by actress Delfina Guido) accidentally finds the silhouette of virgin Maryin a wall of the house in dispute.

Colombian Culture

The Lord of miracles is the Patron also of the city of Buga, the only city in western Colombia that without being capital of department is granted with privileges of great metropolis, since Spanish colonial times, and named after him as the land lady city of the country.

The image represent, from the anthropological point of view, an interesting mixing of the Christian religion brought by the Spaniards to South America with the cosmology characteristic of the Andean Cultures, where God communicates with the humans through rivers. Water streams or lakes were along thousands of years magical and mystical places of contact with the supernatural forces. The aborigines used great bodies of water as channels of communication with the great beyond, the world of the ancestors, and to pray to the divinity.

In Andean Columbia it is famous for instance the legend of the Golden Man, El Dorado, that was an Aborigine Chibcha King that every year used to navigate with priests using a raft on the volcanic Guatavita lake, located over three thousand meters over the sea level, carrying incredible offerings of Gold to the Gods to be thrown in the water. The Chibchas believed that their entire civilization came from a woman and a baby that suddenly emerged from the waters of another Andean lake in its territory.

The Great Civilizator God , or messenger of the Gods, of the Northern Andes, Bochica, saved the entire Sabana of Bogota from a terrible flood by opening with his magic staff a fall of water in the rocks that, according with the legend, is the current Tequendama falls. Interestingly Bochica was always depicted in the ancient Art of the Andes as a fair skinned man with beard, very look like the aspect of the Hebrews of ancient times or even the first Spaniards that came to Columbia, showing at the same time a parallelism in between the great universal biblical flood of the prophet Noah, as well as the legend of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico or Wiracocha in Ancient Peru.

Buga is located currently in the middle of the Cauca's valley, a region that was populated in ancient times, since at least 1000 years before Christ, by some of the most advanced Prehispanic Columbian civilizations: Kalima, Quimbaya, Malagana, Katios, all among the best goldsmiths of the Americas. It was Sebastian de Benalcazar, a Lieutenant of Francisco Pizarro, who first heard from the native Andean people of the legend of El Dorado. Moved by the rumors of the existence of El Dorado Benalzacar crossed from Equator to Columbia, in 1535, exploring all the south West of the country, founding various cities ( San Juan de Pasto, Popayan and Santiago de Cali) in 1537 on his way and finally arrived to the valley of Sabana of Bogota that he reached at the same time than the Granadian conqueror Gonzalo Ximenez of Quezada and the German one Nikolaus Von Federmann by 1539.

In 1555 Sebastian of Benalcazar, already confirmed as governor of Cauca Province founded Guadalajara of Buga. Cauca is a quechua word that means "soft" and refers to the paused aspect of the stream of water that runs into this so big Andean river, that however has turbulent underwater currents. The River was used by the Aborigines since before Christ as a pathway of rafts navigation from the inner Andean valleys and mountains to the Caribbean sea. This also has powerful symbolism of communication in between the world inhabited by men and the one that is home of the divinity, also in between the high peaks of the Andes in contact with the sky and the low lands next to the ocean, a sort of trip from the supra world to the infra world across the northern Andean prehispanic kingdoms.

No doubt the cult to our Lord of Miracles of Buga transformed the Spanish Conquest of Columbia more humanitarian with respect to the Andean Aborigines, it was as the image of Guadalupe in Mexico, a point of friendly and harmonious contact in between very different civilizations. After the apparition it is likely that under the Catholic church request the initial violent conquest by Spain of the country was moderated in the XVII century, respecting more the human dignity of the aborigines, that were non longer treated as just pagans.

Catholic Church

Basilica of Guadalajara of Buga Vista

Beliefs and miracles

Roman Catholic sources claim many miraculous and supernatural properties for the image such as the fact that the figure has maintained its structural integrity over nearly 500 years, while wooden replicas normally last only some few decades before they start to suffer degradation.

1. The washingwoman found a tiny crucifix that was the size of her hand in the Guadalajara river and then it grew up to the size of a boy of 10 yrs old in a night. That was the first miracle.

2. In 1605 the Crist while it was put in side a fire for two days instead to burn after hours transpired oil became purified in his original features.

3 The sudden move of the stream from its original riverbed to facilitate the peregrination of devotes coming from the city of Buga.

4. Marino A. Molina, a professional basketball sportmen who represented Colombia in the 1st Bolivarian games of 1938, was healed being 6 years old of an infection of Gangrena in his mouth that was diagnosticated as fatal and fret part of his left cheek and jaw. His mother prayed to the Novena of our Lord of Miracles of Buga.

5. Tulia M. Aldana, who became the first national bank executive woman of Columbia in 1949 ( Almagran ), was healed by 1930 of a tumor in her right groin that was diagnosticated as maligne by physicians who recommended to use surgery on it, without any treatment after prayers of her grand mother to Our lord of Miracles of Buga.

6. A worker in a mine in Peru had an accident losing his speech and sight, he prayed to this Christ and he was healed.

7. Romelio Cosio recovered the full motion on his legs after to have diagnosed of irreversible paraplegia by Physicians. This miracle happened when he was in prayer in front of the Crucifix, he literally left his crutches and start to walk normally without them.

8.Teresa Moreno had a nervous chronic spasm or tic that didn't allow her to talk or eat normally, after she prayed to this Christ she was healed.

9. A boy of the Amazonic region of Caqueta was born with a severe infection in his lungs and in spite of the diagnostics of physicians that will soon die he survived, he was healed after prayers to this Christ.

10. By 2005 a youngster of Cundinamarca, Andean Colombia, suffered an accident that left her in Comma state. After some months of prayer by her family using Our lord of Miracles novena she recovered consciousness.

11. Having as witness the Priest father Guillermo Giraldo a man that was diagnosed with brain death by physicians returned literally to life. His wife prayed to this Christ.

12. After three years praying the Novena to Our lord of the Miracles of Buga, Marina Benítez became mother, she was diagnosed as sterile by physicians.

13 José Luna is a devote that traveled from Mexcico to Buga to give thanks to our Lord of Miracles of Buga to be healed of his spine, after been lying in bed for 4 years.

Pontifical approbation

Several Pontiffs have granted recognitions to the venerated image, namely the following:

• Pope Pius VI In 1783 H.H. Pope Píus VI in response to a report of miracles occurred in the Sanctuary of Buga, with 22 “breves perpetuos”, gave special instructions granting generous indulgencies to all the pilgrims that attend the sanctuary. The copy of this Pontific document is filed in the Archives of the Basilica.
• Pope Pius VIII In 1819 the Roman Catholic Church officially approved the Novena of the Lord of Miracles of Buga, designed by the Franciscan Fray Francisco G. Rodríguez, as a devotion offered by all that suffer disparate situations or try to defend impossible causes, in particular to overcome incurable diseases.
• Pope Pius XI, on June 23, 1937 Pope Píus XI granted to the sanctuary the title of minor Basilica. This decree was applied by Cardinal Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, that later would be elected Pope Píus XII.
• Cardinal Primado of Columbia, Pedro Rubiano on August 2 of 2007 he presided the solemne mass of celebration of the first 100 years of the Basilica of Our lord of Miracles of Buga.

Devotions and veneration

The novena is recited daily in the National Shrine of the Lord of the Miracles of Buga at his basilica.

The Lord of the Miracles of Guadalajara de Buga is considered the Patron of the Colombian Armed Forces. He is also venerated by all social sectors in Colombia, a country of outstanding ethnic diversity, and specially by the Andean native aboriginals, on the account of their devotion calling for the conversion of the aborigines of all South America. Replicas of the image are very popular in millions of homes not only in Colombia but in other Andean or Caribbean countries around it.

The annual festivities in honor of the Lord of Miracles of Buga (Colombia)in 2014 were extraordinary, as three special events that the Redemptorist friars, that have administrated the Basilica along all its existence, and the Pilgrims had celebrated:

First, the 130 years since the arrival of the Redemptorist Community to the city of Guadalajara de Buga, in western Andean Colombia.

Second, the 75 years since it was received the title of Minor Basilica, granted to the shrine by the Holy See,

Third, 25 years of service to the pilgrims and the social works of the “Pilgrim House Foundation.”

These three reasons made the days of the Novena and the Feast Day (September 5–14) and the pilgrimage of thousands and thousands of pilgrims to the Shrine/Sanctuary a sight rarely seen before.

See also

• Our lady of the Mountain
• Christ apparitions in New World
• Acheiropoieta
• Basilica del Senor de los Milagros de Buga
• Miracle of the Guadalajara river in Colombia
• Our Lady of Guadalupe

References

1.↑ a b «Basilicas in Colombia» (en inglés). Giga-Catholic Information. Consultado el 21 de noviembre de 2008. 2.↑ «Sector Histórico». Alcaldía Municipal de Guadalajara de Buga. Consultado el 21 de noviembre de 2008. 3.↑ «Historia de la Basílica de Buga». Milagroso de Buga. Consultado el 21 de noviembre de 2008. 4.↑ «Basílica Menor del Señor de los Milagros». Alcaldía Municipal de Guadalajara de Buga. Consultado el 21 de 5.↑ «Creer y Consumir: La industria del turismo Religioso en Guadalajara de Buga. Juan Manuel Caycedo-Atehortua, Universidad Del Valle, Tesis Professional en Sociologia. Octubre, 2013.

External links

• http://milagrosodebuga.org/index.php/el-milagroso
• http://www.ewtn.com/SPANISH/Saints/Se%C3%B1or_de_los_milagros_de_buga.htm
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcRntEX6TkQ
• http://enpazyarmonia.blogspot.com/2011/07/peticiones-al-milagroso-de-buga.html
• http://diosysantidad.blogspot.com/2013/09/senor-de-los-milagros-de-buga-colombia.html
• http://parroquiasanpedro.org/santuario/novena
• http://www.pscmpr.org/
• http://www.yelp.com/biz/parroquia-del-se%C3%B1or-de-los-milagros-le%C3%B3n
• http://www.parroquiasanclemente.com/web/la-parroquia/el-templo
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/eltb/3240034353/
• http://www.cssr.com/english/scalanews/feast-of-the-lord-of-miracles-of-buga-valle-colombia/
• https://catholiccanada.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/lord-of-miracles-luke-822-56/
• http://cali-carcel.blogspot.com/2012/07/iii-cali-el-misterio-de-la-virgen-de.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOaLSrbg3zk
• http://variedadesdecolombia.com/basilica-de-buga.html
• http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-1515596
• http://www.cruzadacentrocultural.org/articulo-el-milagroso-de-buga
• http://www.livevalledelcauca.com/buga/basilica-del-senor-de-los-milagros.html
• http://bibliotecadigital.univalle.edu.co/bitstream/10893/7100/1/0461986-p.pdf
• http://historico.elpais.com.co/paisonline/notas/Agosto052007/basilica.html